The importance of music videos

Music videos are considered very important in the music industry as majority of artists careers are due to the success of their music videos. Music videos are a way in which artists can express themselves in a visual way rather than just through their lyrics and their voices. They are able to show that they have the ability to impress the public not only through their amazing vocal skill but also through their performance skills and their image overall. Many people are intrigued by certain music videos rather than the actual lyrics. It is what they see that attracts them and leads them to purchasing the song or album. Music videos aim to give the song a meaning and a story. People can now relate to song by its visuals as they are aware what the story is behind the song. By knowing the true meaning behind the song it allows the audience to interact and in some way feel that the song was especially written for them.


Back in the days music videos were very rare. Simply because television and film production was not very advanced, in which case music was often heard through radios. Now music videos have taken over. MTV started broadcasting around the 1980s, at first only in the United States. Gradually MTV spread around the world. This was considered as a new era of the music industry where people were able to present to the public their talent besides singing. Now music television holds the power of music videos.


In the modern world today music videos are just as important as the song itself as it leads a path to their great success. Audiences tend to know of a song or new release through artists music videos, by watching MTV or even YouTube. Artists become so popular because of their music videos not only with the audience but in the music industry itself. For example in MTV annual music awards, artists are given awards for the best music video. This bringing greater success to their career.


Many fans enjoy watching music videos because of its artistic graphics and uniqueness. I for one tend to watch music channels on a regular basis and that is one of the main ways I get to know of new releases as well as new artists. Music videos is what gives an image to the artists; it allows us to know what the artist is like and for many viewers it allows them to create expectations on further releases and albums. When we are presented with this image through music videos, we want to be like the artist. We want to live their glamorous way and look like them. This allowing further interaction between the audience and the artist and promoting the artist not only for their music but for the way they look and act.

However, TV is not the only way artists release their music videos; due to the development of web 2.0 music is able to be promoted through the internet. Web 2.0 allows its users to interact and collaborate at a world wide basis. Enabling people to add content to websites and update this has allowed new and upcoming artists to use the internet in a promotional context. Artists are able to add their music, video, and information of events on socialising networks and distribution channels. As well as gaining a fan base and enabling people all over the world access their music it allows them to gain direct feedback from audiences; this may help them improve their work and work to a higher level. Web 2.0 is found to be an incredible promotional tool for independent artists. It has allowed artists to grow a fan base, manufacture their music and sell CD's. This leads to music downloading as over the years the increase of music downloads risen.

Websites such as MySpace and YouTube enable artists to put their music videos up for the whole world to view at no cost at all. YouTube has 1000's of viewers every minute of everyday. By placing a music video on YouTube you are guaranteed to easily get viewers and create a fan base. Unless you are a major music band or artist that is financially stable, it is practically impossible to get your music directly on TV channels such as MTV. This is because directors of big music channels would not be convinced to place a unknown artist on their channel that would make them no money what so ever.

In conclusion, music videos have allowed the music industry to create a new way to generate publicity and make additional income from selling music video collections. Music videos are not only watched but many people like to buy them on DVD. Audiences are so fixated with their artists that they like to collect all merchandise including music videos. This is a great advantage to the music industry as a whole and also to the artists individually. Not to forget, also an advantage to the public as it is a form of entertainment.

Many of the biggest artists such as Jennifer Lopez and Michael Jackson have released DVD's of their hit music videos. This acts as a great way to promote themselves and to make larger profits. As mentioned before fans love to collect merchandise of their artists, from DVD's to posters, no matter what they may be. For this reason we feel that making a music video for our artist will help promote the artist to a larger scale, vocally and visually.

Our music video
In order to promote our artist and his music video we would most likely use web 2.0. As he is a fairly new artist that isnt very well known, it will be considerably hard to get him on channels such as MTV etc. Also, with the low budgets it will not be possibe to immediatly get him to that scale. It would be a reasonable step to begin by making a MySpace account on which he can promote himself and his music. He could add his music videos to this allowing people all over the world view his videos. He could also add his videos to other websites such as YouTube. These websites have large audiences and will be an easy and effecient way to create a fan base.